SPILL FEATURE: LET’S FUCKING ROCK – A CONVERSATION WITH DIRTY NIL’S LUKE BENTHAM

LET’S FUCKING ROCK

A CONVERSATION WITH DIRTY NIL’S LUKE BENTHAM

As The Dirty Nil return with their sixth studio album, the Hamilton-based punk duo is running leaner and a hell of a lot meaner on The Lash, dropping on July 25 via Dine Alone Records. There is an urgency to this album that speaks not only to their performance and songwriting, but the whirlwind sessions in which the album was written and recorded in. Guitarist and singer Luke Bentham sits down to discuss The Lash and how the band peeled back the layers to rediscover that classic Dirty Nil sound.

PURCHASE THE LASH VIA BANDCAMP

Right from the get-go, Bentham and drummer Kyle Fisher sought inspiration through a different process. Rather than head out to Seattle to record with John Goodmanson, who has produced all their records since 2017’s Minimum R&B, the band cut The Lash at Hamilton’s very own Boxcar Sound with Vince Solivari, a long-time friend who had previously recorded many demos with him in the past, at the helm. Bentham describes it as, “You know, like we’re doing these, these sessions where we would do like, five or seven songs or whatever, demoing them completely off the floor, all in one day. And we said, ‘well, if we had ten days instead of one day’, I would say that we placed a bet on ourselves. I would say that we could get in and do this quickly and have a great time. I think the last time we recorded we booked too much time. We’re in there, kind of losing our minds after a certain amount of tracking this one, we just did it in in ten days.” The resulting 10 tracks are propelled by such a level of immediacy as heard in the thunderous “Gallop Of The Hounds”, the haunting dissonance of “Fail In Time”, and the bite of “Rock N’ Roll Band”. Bentham best describes the spirit of these sessions, “I remember asking Vince. I was just like, ‘I’ve never seen this microphone. Like, why are you using this on my voice?’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know. It just looks cool. I plugged it in. It sounds good.’ So, there’s a lot more of that type of energy on this recording than previous ones.”

Beyond a fresh approach to making records that has seemingly revitalised the band, Bentham found early inspiration in an unlikely place: the basement of the Vatican. It was a group of three bronze relief statues by the same artist named Francisco Messina… I just couldn’t step away from it… But it was the hardest shit I’ve ever seen in my life. It was like, you know, essentially two guys, a very grim scene of two guys fighting over a knife, and it was carved into bronze.” Bentham was so moved by the piece that he attempted to use it for the album’s artwork, but the Vatican instead presented them with a cease and desist. Building of the brutality, Jack Sabbat gave The Lash a distinctively retro punk rock aesthetic that speaks both the original inspiration and the raw sound of the record.

The Lash is a scathing record that sonically sees The Dirty Nil return to their roots while taking aim at the industry bullshit that artists are forced to wade through, pulling them further and further away from their craft. “One can’t let it dampen your enthusiasm for playing fucking rock ‘n’ roll… This is just like busting out of a self-imposed prison and just saying, ‘okay, well, what do we like doing? We like we like rocking. So let’s fucking rock.’” While perhaps most explicit in “Rock N’ Roll Band”, this is the ethos at the heart of The Lash. Musically, lyrically, and even in its conception, this is a record about carving one’s own path for the pursuit of one’s own fulfillment. In doing things their own way, The Dirty Nil have returned with one of their strongest albums yet in the shape of The Lash.

Listen to the full, unabridged conversation with Luke Bentham, including stories behind his lyrical and musical journey and inspirations behind The Lash, and his desert island records on episode 49 of Beats By Ger on Spotify and YouTube.

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Main Photo Credit: Drew Thomson